More thoughts on being a transfer student...

I remember the elation I felt at finally transferring to the UC system. I had maintained a 4.0+ at the community college level. When I opened the acceptance letter I felt that I had really accomplished something. Then I went to the transfer student orientation for my major. The speaker, a female administrator, told the gathered transfer students that we basically did not know what hard work was and that our glowing GPA's meant nothing. We were starting at the UC with an empty slate. Her philosophy was that the community college system had coddled us and that now the real work would begin. She expected many of us to drop off the radar after a few quarters of this new academic rigor. I began to wonder why we had all been accepted if we were obviously sporting inflated GPA's. I wondered if these were just scare-tactics meant to jolt the younger transfer students. I searched the faces of those in the audience and found that there were perhaps two in the crowd that looked in their late 20's, the rest were 18-19. As her address continued I found that most of her suggestions for academic success were things I personally had applied to my studies up to that point. I wondered how I could possible do more. She suggested that if we worked we should quit. If we lived off-campus we should move on-campus. I had hoped that my family finances would be such that once I did transfer I could quit my job and attend full-time for the last two years of my degree program. As life would have it things did not go as planned. I would be attending part-time, working full-time and living an hour and a half to two-hour commute away from campus. I began to quake a bit in my boots. I later went to the orientation BBQ and sat alone on a knoll in the park watching the students amassed below. I asked myself, "What am I doing here?" But I continued to feel fortunate to be accepted and I put my blinders on and forged ahead. I went to a counseling appointment during the first quarter and was told that I should meet my faculty advisor. I made an appointment. I asked her to look over my schedule of classes to see if I was heading in the right direction. She said it looked as if I was, then she sat back in her chair and said, "You alternative students, I wish you could just take the time to smell the roses. You are always so focused on graduation. I wish you could veer off course and take some anthropology classes or history classes and really get the best out of your time here." That was the extent of her advice. I later had her for a class and really enjoyed the class, but I have not gone back to confer with her again. Hers was the only advice directed at me, the alternative student, and unfortunately I was not able to apply it to my experience. Real life and what ifs do not co-exist. I feel as if it is a miracle that I am here, practically at the end of my journey, intact. Sometimes I wonder how different my experience would have been if I had attended full-time, didn't have financial pressures, started when I was younger. But I can only speak to the experience I have had. It has been a long road, it has changed me and I am glad that I continued to put one foot in front of the other. Still trying to find "returning student advice for older persons" and still finding very little.